Krishnagiri district is set to embark on an ambitious plan to transform itself into a modern economy taking advantage of its location and the latest trends in Information Technology.The expectations of the people are also high in view of the many projects and schemes taken up by the administration since the inception of the district in 2004.

e-District, is 1 of the 27 Mission Mode Projects under NeGP under the Department of IT, GoI. Districts are basic administrative unit of government where most G2C interaction and bulk of citizen centric services are delivered. E-District aims at providing support to the District Administration to deliver services to the citizen at his doorstep. Mere computerization will not bring about this transformation; there is need for a complete mindset change among all Government employees. This is the challenge, but not an entirely impossible task to achieve. Given the right leadership, motivation, training and inspiration, this is very much possible.

In the midst of technological advancements, which facilitate expeditious disposal of Office business, and the increasing expectations from our Citizen's for faster delivery of services, the existing office system is a blind alley. The existing office procedures also have created a 'bureaucratic' mindset in out staff that goes against the very concept of "Citizen is the King". As pro-active leaders, it is our duty to change this mindset and mould them as proactive contributors in the changed paradigm. This requires not only a new system and continuous motivation, but also a new office atmosphere. This is the overriding principle of this proposal. Thankfully, it is easy to introduce this at the upcoming collectorate in the beginning itself.

Bureaucracies over periods of time have had its relevance. The present system evolved during the Industrial Revolution. It grew in size with the size of the population and so did maze of rules and regulations and procedures, not necessarily leading to a better service delivery. Transactions costs involved in moving a file from one level of the hierarchy to another, grew exponentially. Thus departments and agencies working compartmentally and often at cross-purposes evolved.

As citizens are the masters of government it is needed to improve this experience and enhance efficiencies of the various departments at the district level to enable seamless service delivery to the citizen. The project scope is to integrate various departments of the districts to provide seamless services to the citizens.

For successful implementation of e-districts, the redesigning of the existing processes and delivery mechanism to facilitate an efficient and effective service delivery structure, has been identified as a key activity.

Initially a few districts in some States are to be taken up for pilot implementation of the MMP, and once the pilots have been implemented, the contours of the e district project would be finalised as a MMP, to be implemented across the country.

Krishnagiri is one of the e-districts in Tamil Nadu identified by Government of India. The objectives of the MMP include backend computerization to enable efficient delivery of government services and to proactively provide a system of spreading information on the Government schemes, planned developmental activities and status of current activities.

Front ends under the scheme are only to be built at District, Tehsil, Sub division and block level, in the form of citizen facilitation counters. Village level linkage would be established through Common Services Centres for delivery of services.

The shift from a traditional form of governance to an electronic one is challenging with great potential for change and at the same time fraught with serious consequences. The change should take place without disturbing the system, morale of the staff or attracting a backlash from entrenched interests. The change over has to be smooth and balanced. For any e-governance initiative to succeed, it is very important that we undertake a very serious change management initiative by preparing the stakeholders psychologically and leading them as a team. Once the stakeholders become comfortable with the system, any amount of process re-engineering can be done. This model can be adopted in any Government office in India, which works under the Tottenham system of Office Administration.

The file and the "red tape" have come to symbolize governance. The file is at the heart of any government office in India, as they all work as per the Tottenham system of administration. The idea is to take away the "red tape" literally and replace it with an electronic file.The speed of movement of the file really determines the pace of the administration. Unfortunately the system has become corrupt and has become a nightmare for the citizens. Hence it is imperative that this 'backend' of governance be tackled first before entering into the 'front end' of delivery of service to citizens. Thus a serious G2G initiative alone can bring in efficient G2C delivery of services. This is what we have attempted at the Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women Ltd in 2001 and what we are trying to do currently at Krishnagiri.

Keeping in mind the above points mentioned, the following services are offered in Krishnagiri under e-District.

Certificates: Creation and distribution of certificates for income, domicile, caste, Birth, Death etc.